Posted: 9/5/2006 9:31:19 AM EDT
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Mini-Gaussian Gun Interesting, is there anyone working on a weapon system using this principal? 
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www.grand-illusions.com/gaussian%20gun.htm It's not really a "guassian" gun, but is a cool toy. Build one, shoot a ball bearing, and measure it's speed ("surprisingly fast" is an insufficient description) and weight to understand whether it's worth scaling up. |
It seems the magnents magnify the kenetic energy of the one ball bearing hitting it slowly. By the time all that kenetic energy reaches the 4th ball bearing it launches it at a high rate of speed. |
What is a true gaussian gun and is it possible to make one man portable with today's technology? |
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It's a novelty toy that relies on the attraction of the magnets to accelerate the single bearing and smack the 4th loose. Seems like it's completely dependant on the force applied by the megnets to generate enough momentum to break that last bearing free. One thing to consider would be using a smaller projectile bearing to get more velocity. The other, adding electricity to supplement the magnet. Not sure how well this will scale...to get more momentum you need either more velocity or weight on the loose bearing. Means you need bigger magnets and bigger bearings. Not sure what recoil would be like, but you will have the row of bearing moving backwards as a result. To eliminate the slight pull holding that projectile on, you could use an electromagnet and shut it off at the time of impact to get a little more velocity on it. |
No 
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A coil gun; and no. However, the DD-X will supposedly have an EM-propulsion gun on it. ETA: link |
| Without watching it again, IIRC, there are a couple small neodymium or some rare earth magnets, then the 3 or 4 ball bearings. He lets go of the back ball bearing and the magnetism pulls that into the stack and the transferred kinetic energy drives the front ball bearing off which is not as affected by the magnets pull. |
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a rail gun is more practical as it doesn't have to be "cocked" every time you shoot it. To make a good Gaussian gun you could make the first balls proportionately larger and make the projectile proportionally smaller, think bowling balls and a golf ball. With a killer magnet you could launch a small ball at freakishly fast speed. I think a gun like this would have a high wear factor too. -JTP |
Sorry to pick on you in particular, but ... There is no such F'ing thing as a "rate of speed" -- its a totally meaningless phrase, usually uttered by moronic police spokesmen on TV trying to look and speak "official". Rate implies change. Speed is a constant - unless its changing, then that rate of change of speed is called acceleration. At the limit, you could say a "high rate of change of distance" -- but the English language has a very useful word to covver this -- its "speed". Sorry again ... but that phrase just grates on my nerves. |
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I wonder what impact forces would be involved in this. I haven't played with physics in a while, so I may be off but I suppose you could estimate the forces required for a 10,000fps velocity for a 10g projectile (assuming no deflection of the materials and a fixed time of impact). Here's a link to a railgun project: http://www.powerlabs.org/railgun.htm |